Are you tired of War

Italian cities were paralyzed by tens of thousands of protesters blocking train stations and highways. London police hauled away demonstrators, including many school children. Protesters stopped traffic in Melbourne, Australia.

first of all the great majority of protests was completely peaceful....only in the arab countries there were violent protests (and they don't demonstrate for peace but for war against the US and to overthrow their governments). secondly there would be many ways to improve the situation in all of the middle east....an embargo and a war that killed over a million people are certainly not the best way to go.

Let's not forget that once the military action to oust the Saddam regime is completed, the United States of America intends to bring democracy and all of its freedoms to the people of Iraq. One of these freedoms (one assumes) would be the right to publically protest just like they do in other representative democracies around the world.

Crush the right to dissent in America, or the right to promote socialism or even >Egad< communism and you castrate the democratic freedoms you are using force to establish elsewhere.

Democracies generally, and America specifically either allow dissent and protest or they don't.

If we don't, it is not a product anyone wants to see us exporting.

Eric

p.s. In Toronto, protesting students laid down on the street yesterday en masse and disrupted rush hour traffic. There were four arrests. The Toronto St. Patricks Day Parade had more arrests. So did last years Gay Pride Parade. So did the Molson Indy Weekend. So did every single day of the Canadian National Exhibition.

The ability to protest here should never be removed. It is a part of our free speech. It is just HOW it is done that comes to question. It seems to mostly be people bent on being anarchists, not protestors.

Some protesters were clearly prepared for violence. Sheriff Michael Hennessey said some demonstrators fired bolts from slingshots, and others slashed the tires of squad cars. Police clearing a mob from Seventh and Mission streets early in the afternoon came away with a haul of pipe wrenches, rocks and other makeshift weapons.

Even just disrupting people's daily lives (like blocking traffic and preventing them going to work) is not going to win them over.

I cam home past some protestors today who were just at the side of the road next to the town hall with a 'hank for peace' banner. I honked and gave them a wave. I don't think they are bad people for wanting peace. Surely that is what everyone wants? (except arms dealers and their friends)